[rec.music.gaffa] The Bodhran and Other Celtic Bangie-Thingies

Love-Hounds-request@GAFFA.MIT.EDU (12/29/90)

Really-From: amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik)



Hi everyone!  I hope I get the job I'm interviewing for next week;
it'll give me an excuse to be logged in more and maybe I can post more
again. (pout, pout).  I have the boxed set on order, btw, and I'm
saving my vacation days against the time that Kate comes here!

(Here meaning that I'll go anywhere in the North American continent to
see her if need be).

Gregory Bossert writes:

>re christmas: well, i can now list the bodhran (an irish frame drum)
>as one of the many instruments i own but cannot play.  the bodhran
>falls into the special category of "instruments featured on Ms.
>Bush's recordings that i own but cannot play", a distinction shared
>by just about all my musical thingums.  Anyway, anyone who thinks
>that drums are easy to play (you just hit 'em, right?)  is welcome to
>come play the end of Jig of Life on the bodhran...

I heartily agree with this.  However, I have a small, probably
anal-retentive question to bring up.  Knowing how the bodhran is
played, and listening to the drum part in "Jig of Life" (sometimes
over and over, at high volumes, in the car with the windows down), I
think that the bodrhan may not be the (only) drum being played.  The
resonance of the drum hits and the hitting of the rims makes me think
of the drums I've seen in Celtic bands (you know, the Irish equivalent
to a pipe and drum corps), which are definitely played with mallets in
*both* hands, instead of a hand-held drum played with one.

Now, I'm a beginner on the bodhran, and I've heard the drum solo to
"Wipeout" played successfully on a bodhran, so anything's possible.
Any drummers out there with more expertise who can solve this for me?

>and if you survive that, try Night of the Swallow on my bagpipes... ;-]

Sweet Goddess preserve us, I think not.  Although, if I can get an
oboe to make noise...  :-)

Vickie!  Rob!  Do you guys have real, mail-type addresses that
envelopes can go to ?  Can you send them to me?  I hate this job!
gotta go back to work :-(

-- 
-----Susan Harwood Kaczmarczik-------------------------------*<:-)-------------
"The whims that we're weeping for our parents would be beaten for."--Kate Bush
----------amadeus@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu---------The University of Texas @Austin---